Wild and Free (Wild Bluffs #3)

Prologue

Carter

High School

“She’s not my type,” I mutter to my friend Jaxon. We’re sitting at one of the booths in the back of the diner my mom works at, grabbing a quick dinner following baseball practice.

“Right, because hot, athletic, and smart is repulsive to all guys,” Jaxon replies with a mock shiver. “Kelsey Harper? Ew.”

“We grew up together. She’s basically my sister,” I say, ignoring his annoyingly sarcastic assessment.

I’m not lying. At one point in my life, Kelsey was just another one of the kids I’ve known since before I can remember. The one I’d been in classes with since I was five. It’s how it works when you’re in a small town and you’ve gone to school with the same fifty kids since preschool.

Until it wasn’t.

I’m not exactly sure when it happened because, unlike in the movies, there was no fall, no big explosion that happened in my heart or mind.

My feelings for her slowly changed. At first, I thought she was cute—that was around the time my adolescent brain stopped sending signals to my mouth whenever I tried to talk to her.

It was about eighth grade when I realized Kelsey was really smart and surprisingly witty.

Then, during our freshman year, I realized she was beautiful.

But it has never been more than an innocent crush, a hint of feelings I will never act on.

I won’t be one of those people who gets held back by a teenage relationship—not after seeing what it did to my mom.

“Right.” Jaxon shoots me a skeptical look at my blatant lie. “I lose my ability to talk around all my sisters too.”

“You don’t have any sisters,” I remind him. “And anyway, I can talk around Kelsey. I do it all the time. We’re in basically every class together.”

Which is a bit of a problem because I spend more time watching Kelsey as she twirls that strand of hair from the back of her neck around her finger than I do focusing on what I’m supposed to be learning. Luckily, by May of senior year, everyone has given up on teaching us anything.

Jaxon, not one to be deterred, grins at me. He’s chewing a mouthful of fries, not at all bothered by the ketchup on his cheek. “You should ask her out.”

“No,” I say gruffly. I can’t say I haven’t thought about it lately, but it doesn’t make sense.

Unlike Jaxon, who still has two years left in Wild Bluffs, Kelsey and I are both leaving soon.

Graduation is in two weeks, and I’m finally out of here to chase my dreams of college and a career far, far away from this little town.

“Why not?” Jaxon presses.

“Even if I had feelings for her, which I’m not saying I do, everyone knows high school relationships don’t work out. How many people do you know who “are going to be together forever” and then go to college, realize there are other fish in the sea, and then break up? Within months?”

“Doesn’t mean that’s what will happen to you. I’ve seen the way you stare at her practically every time she’s around.”

I feel warmth trying to spread to my cheeks.

I can’t deny it. Every time Kelsey walks into a room, there’s a shift in the air.

She’s not just the smartest, hottest girl I know; she’s got this strength about her that pulls you in whether you want it to or not.

And as much as my body thinks it wants to, my brain is adamantly in the this-is-a-bad-idea camp.

Kelsey and I both have too many things pulling us away from each other for it to ever work.

“Whatever,” I say in response to Jaxon’s claim. “I’m not asking Kelsey out.”

Jaxon shrugs, tapping his fingers on the table like drumsticks. “Your loss.”

Before I can respond, the door to the diner opens, and I don’t need to look up to know who it is. The air turns electric around me.

Jaxon kicks my shin under the table, as if I might’ve missed the fact that Kelsey is part of the group who just walked in.

I shoot Jaxon a glare as the girls take the booth farthest away from ours.

Jaxon laughs, calling out a hello to Kelsey’s sister Izzy—who also happens to be his best friend—when she spots us. She grins back, waving.

Kelsey walks up to the counter, a soft smile curling on her lips as she catches Jaxon’s excited hello to her sister.

The early-summer light hits her hair through the window, making it glow like a halo of white gold.

Her eyes, always alight with an ice so cold it burns, scan the room, landing on me for just a split second, holding my gaze for all of a breath. My world shifts off-center.

She turns away, completely oblivious to the fact that I’m still staring at her.

Jaxon’s shit-eating grin suggests he’s very aware of it.

“Why don’t you focus on your own Harper sister?” I tease.

“Dude. You know it’s not like that. Iz is my best friend.”

“Sure,” I say, never quite positive if that’s true or if it’s just that neither of them wants to risk what they have for something more.

A group of men my mom’s age come in, taking all five seats at the counter, talking loudly enough to suggest they must’ve hit up one of the bars in town as it opened before heading this way for their food.

I start giving Jaxon my scouting report on the first team we’ll be playing at the baseball state championship tournament next weekend—making sure my catcher is ready for all the key hitters we’re going to see.

I lose myself in the analysis, no longer surprised by Jaxon’s keen insights and ability to see hitters’ weaknesses after watching one or two at bats.

Suddenly, I’m pulled away from our conversation by silence in the building. The kind of silence that suggests something major just happened. Jaxon and I share a glance, both uneasy by the shift in the room.

Kelsey’s voice rises, but not in anger—just a calm authority that no eighteen-year-old should have.

I’m not sure when Kelsey went back up to the counter, but suddenly, she’s there, leaning between my mom and one of the men.

“What did you just say to her?” she asks, her tone cool, her words sharp. “Do you know how disrespectful that term is?”

I start to stand, but Jaxon shakes his head, mouthing bad idea. I know he’s right—if I go insert myself into the mess, the men are far more likely to do something we’ll all regret.

Seeing my movement, my mom’s eyes flash to me, warning me to stay away before she says something quietly to Kelsey and the man.

My mother, always the one to smile and nod through everything, is obviously trying to keep the peace. Kelsey, though? She doesn’t back down. She stands there with a fire in her eyes, her shoulders squared, completely unafraid.

“It’s not okay, Alice. Even if you did get the order wrong—which I highly doubt—he can’t call you that.” She turns and looks the man directly in the eye as she says it again. “That’s not okay.”

The man looks thrown off by a petite high school girl standing up to him. He stammers, trying to come up with some response, but Kelsey doesn’t give him a chance. She keeps going, shutting him down with words that are pure steel.

I’m just sitting there, unable to tear my eyes away.

Not because I’m surprised—because I’m not—but because I’ve never seen someone stand up for my mom like that.

No one ever does. She’s spent her whole life taking shit from people, thinking she deserved to be called names to her face and behind her back because she made one bad decision eighteen years ago.

I’ve never really seen anyone else go to bat for her.

And Kelsey Harper? She just did. Without hesitation.

The guy doesn’t know what to say. He stumbles out an apology and tosses some money to his friends before stumbling out of the restaurant.

My mom brings Kelsey a full cup of water, and Kelsey flashes a smile that’s so effortlessly genuine, it makes my chest tighten.

“Are you okay, Alice?” Kelsey asks, her voice still the only one loud enough to hear across any room.

My mom nods, her lips pressed tight. “I’m fine, Kelsey. Thank you.”

I watch Kelsey as she walks back to her table, her short track shorts pulling along the curve of her muscled thigh with each step. Her sisters and their friends immediately start talking the minute she sits down, and I can tell from across the room she’s already annoyed with their questions.

“Not interested, huh?” Jaxon says, pulling me from my one-sided staring contest.

“No.” Yes. One thousand times yes.

Jaxon snorts. “Sure. I definitely believe it now after watching you stare at her for two minutes without blinking.”

“It doesn’t matter if I like her or not, Jaxon. She managed to get into a military academy, and I got into my dream school with an ROTC scholarship. There is no possible outcome that ends with us together.”

“Maybe someday,” he offers, his smile gentle.

Jaxon has always been a romantic at heart, setting up people in school he knows like each other and asking his prom date out with an elaborate song he wrote for her.

He would believe there is some way Kelsey and I will magically end up together in the end.

Unfortunately for him, I plan to leave this town and never look back—to live my life wild and free.

I shake my head. “Nah, man. There’s no future for us.”